Birds, Bees, Blood Red
by Otaku-Rehab
Summary: As Pepper stares at the deep red stain on her sheets she thinks it must be the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.


_Out of hibernation! Probably. Had to write this because _Good Omens _gives me all sorts of warm and fuzzies, and while Az/Crowley are easily the most squee-tastic part of my day, Pepper comes in at a close second. I can relate to being an angry little redhead. Pepper/Adam if you squint._

_Warning: References to menstruation, not graphic. If you're squicked, you're welcomed to excuse yourself._

_Disclaimer: Not at all mine._

Birds, Bees, Blood Red

A year after the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, nearly to the day, Pepper starts to bleed.

She wakes one morning after a few days of heightened emotions and an ache low in her stomach to find her white sheets ruined with the evidence of her femininity. She knows exactly what it is because her mother has already told her all about the Beauty of a Woman's Changing Body and one's cycle and many terms that made comparisons to flowers. Then they showed all the girls that video at school that the Them bugged her endlessly about afterward. Pepper acted angrier than usual to hide the fact that it all embarrassed her greatly. More than that, though, it was another reminder that she is not One of the Guys.

Pepper doesn't particularly want to be a woman or have a Changing Body. She doesn't see why there needs to be any change at all, since things are just fine now. It isn't fair, really, seeing as the only change the rest of the Them is going through is a growth spurt of a few inches and Pepper already did that months ago. Deep down, deep _deep_ down, so deep you'll never get her to admit it, she is scared that the Them won't like her once she has changed.

She is more than ready to be angry and wonders for a moment if she can put the whole Changing Body thing off for a little while. Her common sense tells her she will have to get her mother so she can clean it up. But as Pepper stares at the deep red stain on her sheets she thinks that it must be the most beautiful thing she has ever seen.

Pepper first loved the color red, then became annoyed with it when people started making comments about her hair, and recently has become slightly terrified of it. Almost a year ago today, actually. Her memories of that day are hazy, and sometimes she is sure she dreamed half of it, but then Adam will look at her and tell her it all really happened and she knows it's true, it just _has_ to be, so believes him with every fiber of her being.

One thing she does remember though, clear as anything, is that woman. The woman with the red hair and the red leather and the red smile that made Pepper want to fight. She faced the woman who held a sword that flamed like both their heads of hair while she herself had only two sticks tied together in a child's knot. Pepper remembers being in awe of the woman's beauty and terror and wanting to be part of that fire, just for a moment, before she fought the woman and she won.

Sometimes, if she is particularly angry that day, Pepper will literally see red, and then she'll see Red. She could swear she sees the woman grin like a shark, baring her teeth to make Pepper even angrier so she has to actively keep herself from falling into that red haze and that red woman.

Back in her room, a year later, Pepper is captivated by the deepness, the violence and the harmony in just that spot of red. She sees the woman in that color. For a brief second, she has a flash of her Changing Body and a vision of herself changing _into_ the woman. Suddenly bleeding and the color red are the scariest things she can imagine.

She doesn't want to be that woman. She doesn't want to be _any_ woman. She just wants to be Pepper.

When her mother finds her crying on her stained sheets fifteen minutes later (which Pepper will never, ever, _ever_ admit to, even after a million Spanish Inquisitions), she feels a little better. Mum cleans her up and lets her crawl under the covers in the master bedroom and makes her hot cocoa even though it's summer. Pepper pushes away her worries about what the Them will think and lets her mum kiss her forehead and tell her how she is finally A Woman.

The next day in the chalk quarry Pepper is determined to act like nothing has Changed, especially not her Body, and is prepared to kick the arse of anyone who does not accept this. (Her money is on Brian going home with a blackened eye.) They question her briefly on her absence the day before and she gives them a gruff response and a look that tells them the subject will go no further. Wensleydale is smart enough to quickly engage Brian in another conversation before the latter can open his mouth and get his nose bloodied. But Pepper cannot breathe freely yet because Adam has not said a word.

She glares at him to hide her fear and makes herself appear as big as she can and snaps, "_What_?" She feels her face color and a moment of terror strikes her when she thinks she sees the woman again. Sharp teeth in a dangerous red mouth.

But Adam smiles effortlessly, beautifully, perfectly, the way he does. "We missed you," he tells her, and she knows he's telling the truth because he's _Adam_ and he'd never lie to her or Them.

Brian and Wensleydale get into a scuffle over something that one of them has said and Adam starts to laugh and Pepper can breathe again because the woman has disappeared. And she has a feeling she won't be back.

_Yeah, me and Pepper are tight. The first boy I ever had a crush on was named Adam. That crush lasted roughly from the first day of kindergarten to the last day of fifth grade. And I handled it by being very rude to him and screaming and pushing him away every chance I got. (So not very different from how I handle relationships now.) Even now the name gives me a bit of a shiver. Like I said, me and Pepper are tight._

_Reviews are good for the soul._

_Jax_


End file.
